Posts tagged "Workplace Discrimination"

On behalf of The Law Office of Michelle Cohen Levy, P.A. posted in Workplace Discrimination on Saturday, November 17, 2018.

If the owner of your company recently hired his son as your manager, another co-worker might have privately complained about it as a case of nepotism. What is nepotism, you might wonder? Is it illegal, and how can it affect your workplace? You and other Florida residents may be interested in learning when nepotism might be acceptable and whether it could qualify as discrimination.

On behalf of The Law Office of Michelle Cohen Levy, P.A. posted in Workplace Discrimination on Thursday, November 1, 2018.

In 2016, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of a transgender woman who was fired from her funeral home job after announcing her transition. The appellate panel said that "discrimination against employees, either because of their failure to conform to sex stereotypes or their transgender or transitioning status, is illegal under Title VII" of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII, one of our main civil rights laws, prohibits employment discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion or sex.

In March, the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica released an exposé on alleged age discrimination at IBM. In May, a 60-year-old IBM employee from Texas who was laid off last year filed a federal lawsuit accusing the company of targeting older workers for layoffs. Now, three former employees from New York have filed a class action complaining that they, too, were laid off because of their ages, which range from 55 to 67.

"What our investigation indicated is that Walmart had a robust light duty program that allowed workers with lifting restrictions to be accommodated," the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a statement. "But Walmart deprived pregnant workers of the opportunity to participate in its light duty program. This amounted to pregnancy discrimination, which violates federal law."

After a layoff, one 45-year-old woman pored over online job ads every day searching for something equivalent to what she had been doing before. Strangely, there seemed to be no job openings despite a strong economy. Finally, someone from her old union clued her in on the fact that job recruiters are known to target online ads exclusively to younger people. Someone her age might not be given a chance to see the available opportunities.

After the #MeToo movement began, there came a new hashtag: #AskMoreofHim. The idea was to urge men in positions of power to take a more active role in preventing gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace. Will they? Or might it cost them to do so?

A former assistant manager in logistics at Volkswagen AG's Tennessee plant claims he was demoted after the company decided it needed to shed its "old diesel image" and re-brand itself as a "modern, young company focused on productivity, efficiency and technology." That effort involved a company-wide effort to get rid of older workers, he claims in a lawsuit.

The New York Times recently performed a review involving thousands of pages of public and court records and interviews with dozens of women and their attorneys. According to the Times, the review showed a clear pattern: Many large, prestigious U.S. companies are still systematically discriminating against pregnant women and firing them when they complain.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has just settled a discrimination case against Jacksonville-based CSX Transportation, Inc. (CSXT). The settlement involves what is called "disparate impact" discrimination against female job applicants.

Sexual harassment scandals brought down Fox News's chairman, the late Roger Ailes, along with Bill O'Reilly, one of its leading commentators. The company had made massive, confidential payouts to women who had accused the two men of sexual harassment. Then, lawsuits and reports revealed a culture that tolerated sexual harassment and even seemed set up to facilitate it. Those discoveries led to overall scrutiny of the culture at Fox News.

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